Indoor wireless access switch systems permit wireless service providers, e.g., paging service carriers and cellular carriers, to provide wireless communications between a microcellular communications system and its surrounding macrocellular communications system. In this framework, the microcellular system generally contemplates an indoor building communications system, where the cells within the microcellular system refer to specific or locaize coverage areas within a macrocellular system. Although considerable progress has been made with the use of wireless technology in microcellular communications systems, for example, indoor systems, many technical problems remain.
One such problem area concerns how cellular communications channels are assigned between the indoor system and the surrounding macrocellular system. Existing implementations of indoor system channel assignment methods focus narrowly on traffic handling capacity, mobile speed and other similar factors. However, prior art systems do not address the issues which are of primary concern to the users of the system, namely, call processing and voice quality. An additional drawback of these methods is that they require information about the macrocellular configuration in order to allocate and assign a channel to the indoor system. As a consequence, prior art systems must be updated each time that a modification is made to the surrounding macrocellular configuration. Another disadvantage of many prior art methods is that they require that a fixed or predetermined radio frequency ("RF") threshold be set prior to initiating channel assignment. Other previously implemented methods have the added drawback of not having autonomous control over the channel assignment methodology and instead, the methodology is initiated and controlled by a Mobile services Switching Center ("MSC").
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method which can dynamically assign channels with respect to call performance and voice quality.